“If we’re trying to figure out how to advance the next generation’s future, we need to be spending more on the next generation, and we’re spending it on yesterday’s generation,” said Kerrey, 70. “I am not the future. My 12-year-old son is. But if you look at the spending, you’d think I’m the future.”

Our companies and our rich don't need to back frontier innovation or even invest to produce: they just need to harvest their returns and tax breaks, tax shelters and compound interest will do the rest.

The public sector is imperfect: it is run and operated by fallible human beings. There are spectacular failings, ranging from the BBC's wasted £100m on its digital media initiative to the unfolding IT disaster over universal credit. But what it does not deserve is universal castigation because a priori it must be useless. It is accountable. It does not loot its users. It is pretty efficient. It is humane.